Gold fooling, p.1
Gold Fooling, page 1
GOLD FOOLING
Tin Can Mystery #9
Jerusha Jones
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, businesses, companies, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2020 by Jerusha Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
For more information about Jerusha Jones’s other novels, please visit https://jerushajones.com
Cover design by Elizabeth Berry MacKenney.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
WHAT'S NEXT
NOTES & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SOURCES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY JERUSHA JONES
CHAPTER 1
Bettina was getting her sweet revenge. But I wasn’t sure she was enjoying it, considering the mighty scowl on her face.
I certainly wasn’t.
“There.” She kept poking me with a hard little forefinger, viciously, as though my body was defective and she could pound it into submission, in pointillist fashion. “There. There.” Who knew fingers could double as blunt weapons? “Cut it here,” she insisted. “We need to see more of Eva’s skin below her collarbone because the jeweled choker necklace I made for her has long dangly chains with jewels on the ends too. She needs to shine and sparkle while she moves!” This was proclaimed with an extravagant flourish of both her arms.
Just exactly what I’d always wanted—to shine and sparkle as I move, to draw attention to the nearly-six-feet-tall length of my body. Ugh. At the moment, however, it felt more like I was in a straitjacket. A sequined straitjacket in a rich burnished-gold color that hugged all my paltry curves from my shoulders all the way down to my knees. You know that girl in one of the James Bond movies who gets coated in gold paint and dies? Yeah, that was me, only still living—barely.
I supposed I should be grateful that there wasn’t a navel-high slit splitting the fabric up my leg, but if I tried to move, there was a very good chance I would pop a seam some place mighty embarrassing. It did seem that Bettina was doing her utmost to counteract the anti-sexiness of the term matron of honor by insisting that my dress reveal far more about my physique than I’m comfortable with.
“I’m not a Bedouin. I don’t have to wear all of your wealth because there’s no permanent, safe place to store it,” I complained as Bettina’s dress designer, Felicia Tautu, followed instructions and made careful snips with her sharp scissors at the neckline.
Felicia is a sweetheart—it’s not her fault one of her more dedicated clients is a miniature tyrant with orange hair and flamboyant style. But the designer is short and plump and pretty, so she had to stand on a step stool to reach my neckline. We were uncomfortably close together as she pinned and adjusted, so I shifted my glance to my right, where Bettina’s other wedding attendants, Petula Dibble, Karleen Jett and Willow Ratliff, awaited their turn at haute couture torture.
Willow’s grandmother, and the manager of Marten’s Marina in which we were all currently floating, inside my house, had also been commanded to perform a role in the upcoming nuptials, but she—woman with good sense that she is—had flatly refused. I was envying her the peace she must be enjoying at that very moment. No doubt she was doing some mundane filing or other such repetitively reassuring task up in the marina office. Something befitting a rainy Saturday afternoon.
But there was no way I could say no to Bettina, because she happens to be my mother-in-law and I adore her son beyond description. Healthy family relations are worth a little sacrifice. Besides, Vaughn and I had eloped—specifically to avoid this type of overbearing, motherly attention which she had planned to lavish upon us. So now we—I—was paying the price when it was her turn to tie the knot.
“Shush.” Bettina clucked and shook her head, swinging that sleek orange bob and her clanky earrings du jour at the same time. She was tolerating no objections. We, the lowly peons, were being costumed for her big day, and she was brooking no argument.
The women seated on my sofa exchanged glances that ranged from rank amusement to glum foreboding.
But Felicia was all business, and very good at her job, in spite of her helicoptering client. “That’s enough,” she said benignly, but with a tone of finality, as she stepped off the stool and stood back to survey my dress. Her dress, actually, because it would have her label in it, but the one I was wearing. “Sophistication requires simplicity.”
If I’d been able to move, I would’ve hugged her. Yes, it does. Indeed, it does. And Bettina needs to hear that from someone other than me every once in a while.
My mother-in-law huffed, and her mouth popped open with a retort that was cut off by a sharp rap at the door.
Which couldn’t have been my husband, because he would’ve just walked in. I probably would’ve almost killed for such a pleasant diversion in that moment.
Vaughn is often not at home because he’s a detective on the local police force and works overtime almost constantly. He’d had the day off—a rare occurrence—but he’d fled the house anyway when he’d heard what the Bettina-imposed plans for the afternoon were. This dress fitting was resulting in the utter waste of what could’ve been a delicious day together.
Karleen’s a detective on the same police force, and has been Vaughn’s mentor for nearly his entire career, but she was sucking it up and submitting to the indignity of a next-to-last dress fitting. That just goes to prove that women are tougher than men.
That morning, I’d suggested that Vaughn would be welcome to stick around and bring us glasses of water with straws to sip from since we weren’t able to bend over in our dresses. But he’d snorted at the idea and hightailed it out the door with a cowardly—but also super-sexy—grin on his face. He was probably doing something manly and invigorating—like helping our neighbor, Cal Barclay, install a new set of marine batteries and a bilge pump in his sailboat. It should be noted that these are not tasks Cal actually needs help with, but they make for a good excuse.
So I stood there, sharing confused stares with my friends, until I remembered that I was the hostess in this situation and I should do something about the knocking at the door.
Except I couldn’t move with any kind of grace or efficiency. “Uh, Felicia...would you? Please?” I wiggled my arm a little bit in the direction of the door.
“Oh, sure.” She set down her pin cushion and looped the long cloth tape measure around her neck like a scarf.
But when she’d opened the door, she staggered back and squeaked.
Not at all like the professional woman I knew.
But I may have squawked a bit too, because I recognized the man with his fist raised, poised to knock again. We stared at each other, mouths agape, while Felicia continued staggering backward and fell, rather than sat, upon the wide upholstered arm of the closest armchair.
I found my voice first. “Special Agent Knoll. To what do we owe this honor?”
He had the polite manners to appear sheepish even as water ran in rivulets off his shaved head and he blinked against the spattering of raindrops. Apparently FBI agents are too tough to carry umbrellas. And also work overtime on Saturdays.
But then he shrugged. “I know this house,” he said. “And I’m curious about one of the people in it.” His gaze swung over to rest on Felicia, and an expression of something—maybe concern?—crossed his face.
Me? I was just confused.
It was true that Agent Knoll had visited my house once before, months ago. He’d been decent and considerate in his interactions with me even though he’d been frustrated by the behavior of some of his colleagues from a different field office.
Also, I was suddenly cold, and shuddered accordingly. The scraps of glittery fabric artfully draped over my body did nothing to provide thermal insulation. “You could come in,” I said, simply because then we could close the door again. Maybe even Agent Knoll would take the task upon himself since Felicia didn’t appear to be currently capable of anything other than sagging against the furniture.
Also, if he came in, he’d be surrounded by women who’d been disrupted in an awkward situation, and I was quite certain we’d have the upper hand should things get rowdy. Because you never know with FBI agents. Besides, it wasn’t like we were hiding anything.
Bettina, however, did not appreciate the intrusion. The moment the door latched and before Agent Knoll had a chance to step away from the puddle he was making on the small rug inside my door, she marched up to him with her fists planted akimbo on
Karleen stood from the sofa and made her presence felt. She might look like a sweet, middle-aged lady with salt-and-pepper hair, but she exudes command presence—developed over decades of police experience—when she wants to.
Agent Knoll gave her a nod, but he wasn’t backing down. Which took some guts.
He also wasn’t explaining himself. Which might be the thing that men do which infuriates women the most. Petula was fidgeting on the sofa, and I sensed an uprising pending among the matriarchs of our group.
“Felicia, come help me out of the dress,” I said quietly. I needed to snap the subject of Agent Knoll’s interest out of her stupor. And I needed to have free use of my limbs. There was something about the FBI agent’s demeanor that made me uneasy, beyond the fact that he’d dropped by my house on a rainy Saturday—uninvited—when I only just barely knew him.
~oOo~
Felicia still looked ghastly in the bathroom. Granted, the lighting over the mirror isn’t the best, and the bathroom is the only room in the house without a window to let in the gray ambient daylight, but she had a pallor that made her appear to be on the verge of fainting. It’s a pity I don’t keep any fortifying spirits in the medicine cabinet, because I thought a shot of whiskey might do her some good.
Felicia’s a lovely young woman. Pacific Islander heritage means her skin always—correction: almost always—has a golden-brown glow, like she just stepped off a tropical isle. I have no idea why she wants to live in drizzly Portland, but she’s making a real go of her design business, and I’ve loved chatting about entrepreneurial nuts and bolts with her in the spare moments we’ve had between fittings.
At the moment, however, she was speechless—and dazed.
I took her by the shoulders and angled her over to the toilet. With a little push, I got her seated on the closed lid. I lifted my arm, and as if in a trance, she pulled on the zipper tab there, freeing me from the sheath dress.
My comfortable clothes were in a pile on the floor by the heat vent, and I’d never been so glad to pull on stretchy, warm garments in my life. I hurried—both to hold the goose bumps at bay and so Felicia and I would have time for a whispered conversation before the guests in my living room grew impatient—and suspicious.
“How do you know Jeremy Knoll?” I whispered, blindly finding the sleeve in my sweater while my head was still inside it.
But when my head finally popped through the opening, Felicia was staring into space as though she hadn’t heard me. I knelt down so we were eye to eye and shook her a little, my hands on her knees.
She flinched and blurted, “What?” Wide-eyed, terrified, unfocused.
“It’s me,” I reminded her. “But he’s out there.” I tipped my head toward the bathroom door. “We have only a minute or two. Tell me why Agent Jeremy Knoll is so scary.”
She blinked. “Is that his first name? Jeremy?”
I blinked too. I was pretty sure it was—I had his business card, the one with six phone numbers on it, somewhere in my stash, up in my office in the glass-enclosed loft over our heads—but I was also pretty sure this wasn’t the pertinent part of my question. I squeezed Felicia’s knees harder. “Why is he here?” I hissed, enunciating as clearly as possible.
Her shoulders sagged in defeat. “He’s everywhere.”
Again, not particularly helpful. “What do you mean? Is he stalking you?”
Her expression registered confusion, and for the first time since entering the bathroom, she looked squarely at me. “No. Yes.” She shook her head. “I mean, not like that—I suppose.”
I blew out an exasperated breath. “So he goes everywhere you go?” I prompted, feeling foolish even as I said it. Because FBI agents aren’t paid to harass normal, law-abiding citizens.
Again, Felicia shook her head. “No. Yes.” Then she winced. “I don’t know. He keeps saying we should talk.”
“About what?”
Tears filled her eyes. In an instant, out of nowhere, she went from stricken to sobbing.
I wanted to throttle Agent Knoll with my bare hands for this inexplicable effect he’d had on her. Instead, I reached for the box of tissues and plunked it into Felicia’s lap. My knees were getting stiff, so I lifted up my fanny and perched it on the edge of the Japanese-style soaking tub—the tub that just barely fits into our tiny bathroom and which I just barely fit into myself, if I accordion my limbs perfectly, but the tub I’m also immensely grateful for as pruning in hot water is one of my primary creature comforts.
“I don’t know,” Felicia whispered in reply, then blew her nose. “But I can guess.”
It was like pulling teeth, getting information out of her. Her short sentences were driving me crazy. “I can help you,” I said tersely, but added a quick caveat in my own set of short sentences. “Probably. I do damage control for a living. But I need all the details in order to be successful. Why is Agent Knoll bothering you?” I tried again.
Usually people have a pretty good idea of the reason if they’ve noticed a law enforcement officer is nosing about in their lives. In fact, they very often have a selection of options available as explanations for their guilty consciences. But Felicia wasn’t that type of woman. Or so I thought.
It was exceedingly difficult to be patient, crouched there in my bathroom, but that’s also part of what I do in my marketing and public relations consulting business—provide the calm and reassuring listening ear when a client’s woes have overwhelmed them.
Felicia sniffled. “I’m trying to escape,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “My family. They’re heavy into gangs in San Diego. My father, my brothers, my uncles, my cousins. Even my sister acts as a courier for them sometimes. My mother, it broke her heart. Even though she died of a brain aneurysm, she also died of a broken heart, but my father can’t give up the money and the prestige—the honor—of being a leader in the gang, a captain.” She shuddered out a deep sigh. “It’s our family business. But I can’t—I can’t...” She broke down into sobs again. “I am my mother’s daughter,” she wailed, ever so softly, ever mindful of the thin protection the bathroom door provided.
I got the gut-wrenching impression Felicia had spent years of her young life crying quietly behind closed doors.
CHAPTER 2
I emerged from the bathroom first, to give Felicia time to compose herself.
I didn’t want to leap to conclusions, except I already had, and I was this far—just this tiny fraction of calm composure—away from giving Agent Jeremy Knoll a vigorous piece of my mind.
What an opportunist—at my house, no less. I was verging on livid. My house is supposed to be a shelter, a refuge, a safe place—for me, and for anyone I choose to invite inside, including all the supper club guests I’d had over the past year. I did not appreciate the presumptuous intrusion.
Agent Knoll was standing where I’d left him, and he reared back a little as I approached. My expression must’ve been exceedingly grim, but he needed to know he’d overstepped his bounds.
Except he said, “Is she all right?” with such obvious concern in his tone, that I faltered and then stopped altogether.
“No thanks to you,” I blurted. Not exactly classy or hospitable, but also better than some of the other accusations that were rattling around in my brain.
He ran a hand over his shiny pate. He was far too young to be completely bald naturally, but his choice to shave his scalp was a handsome one. He had good bones, and his head and ears were perfectly proportioned. Might as well show that off if you’ve got it, I suppose. He was a medium-brown-skinned black man, as tall as me, natty dresser, and he looked decidedly uncomfortable but also resolutely determined as he stood in my living room surrounded by unhappy women.
Something cracked in my belligerence then, something that suggested perhaps coffee and cookies would smooth the way of diplomacy. (From experience, I can say that this is not a far-fetched idea.) That we didn’t necessarily have to advance to battle stations over this awkward and impertinent situation. That perhaps I could feed Agent Knoll and send him on his merry way and assist Felicia in retaining her dignity—as separate from that of her family’s—all in the same fell swoop.
